


Surprise

by welseykels



Series: Dragon Age: Mira Amell [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6319567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welseykels/pseuds/welseykels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seven years Post-Inquisition, Alistair wakes to find his warden wife missing and he’s left with a single clue in the form of a note: Meet us outside, we have a surprise for you.  My contribution to the @alistairtelephonegame, with the prompt being ‘surprise’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my writing masterpage on tumblr!](https://welseykels.tumblr.com/writing)

When he had awoken that morning, turning over to throw his arm over his wife’s waist, he hadn’t expected his hand to connect with a cold mattress. **  
**

His eyes blearily blinked open, before shutting once more when he confirmed his wife was not in the room with him. More than likely one of their children had come into the room well before dawn and woken her. Sometimes they woke him instead, but she’d been facing the door that night, her back pressed against his chest, easily accessible to waking children.

He hadn’t been sure if he’d been dreaming several mornings before when he’d heard excited giggles and his wife telling them not to give away the surprise when they came to fetch her.  But with each morning they came for her instead of him, he knew they were keeping something from him, but he hadn’t been able to figure out what.  His name day was still several months off, any holidays weeks away, even their wedding anniversary had just past a month before.  

If it had been anyone but his wife, he would have found out by now.  She knew him too well, knew how to keep things hidden.  It didn’t help she was a mage and knew a few spells that could cover their tracks. She knew how excellent of a tracker he was, both her spells and his skills something they had used extensively during the Blight. His for food when they were too far from a village, hers to keep bandits and darkspawn off their trail.

And now she was using it against him.

He was determined to find out what it was today once and for all. He stretched and in doing so, his arm brushed over a piece of parchment nestled on her pillow.

His heart raced, the last time she’d left him in bed with a note was when she’d disappeared for three years. She’d promised that she would wake him in the morning for a goodbye, but he’d awoken to find his bedfellow a cold piece of parchment, her tear-stained goodbye when she left in the middle of the night to find a cure for her, for him, for them both.  She’d been gone for three long years.  Three years that he’d filled with helping rebuild the Vigil, aided Hawke and the Inquisition with the fight against Corypheus, went physically into the Fade and back, and launched a war against Weisshaupt.

And now he was here, seven years later, almost seventeen years after the Blight, married and a father.

He wouldn’t let them be parted again.

With a shaking hand, he reached for the sheet and sighed in relief when he saw the words scrawled on the sheet in Mira’s hand.

> _Meet us outside, we have a surprise for you. Ask Nate where._

He was right.  It seemed he would find out today what his family’s big secret was.

He rolled out of bed, pulling on his breeches discarded the night more.  He moved to their dresser, pulling on a tunic, before slipping on his boots by the bedchamber’s door.

He found Nate easily, seated in the main hall, fletching an arrow.  The dark-haired man cocked a brow at him as he approached.  “I take it you got her note?”

Alistair nodded.  “Where are they?”

A chuckle.  “It would probably be best if I showed you.”

It didn’t take long before they’d reached their destination, they didn’t even need to leave the walls of the Vigil.

Alistair’s jaw dropped.

This was not what he had expected in the very least.

They were at the Vigil’s Kennels, and there, surrounding his wife and children were tiny, wriggling balls of fur.

Bruno, Mira’s old mabari from the Blight, looked proudly on the brood he’d sired. His mate, who’d they brought from Denerim during one of their journeys and imprinted herself to Nathaniel, sat cuddled into his side.

He heard Nate chuckle beside him, “Four pups in the litter.” The rogue gestured to where Duncan and Rosie were giggling as they each held a small pup in their arms. “And it seems your children have each found a new friend.”

He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.  It certainly seemed so.  

One tiny pup waddled it’s way over to him, and he could have cried out with joy when the small nose bumped against his hand as he knelt down.

“It seems you have found a new friend as well.  Once Velanna returns, I’d like her to meet the fourth… that is, if my lady agrees.”

It was then that Mira came over to him, his children’s shrieks of delight mingling in the air around them.  She sat down beside him in the grass, her head resting on his shoulder as her gaze drifted down to the small creature snuggling its way into the crook of Alistair’s arm.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“As soon as Nate and I realized Arrow was pregnant, we wanted to keep it quiet.  And they were born this morning, Nate came as soon as he knew, we’d expected them next week.  You’d slept right through him coming, and well, when there were four… I wanted to see if they’d imprint on the children right away.  Another,  well, I’d hoped… you’ve always said you wanted a hound of your own.”

His free hand moved to brush over her cheek.  

“But the kids knew before me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise for all three of you, but they overheard Nate and I the other morning.  And well, they wanted to visit Arrow and the babies.  They’ve been so excited.  We’ve all wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up before we knew they’d all be alright.”

He laughed as the small pup wriggled again, getting comfortable for a nap in the folds of his shirt.  He was the spitting image of Bruno, and he knew his wife could see the similarities as well.

_“What do you think you’ll name him?”_


End file.
